At least eight people died in the sinking of two small “contraband” boats, frequently used to transport migrants, on the night of Saturday to Sunday off San Diego, near the Mexican border, announced the authorities.
“This is one of the worst maritime smuggling tragedies in California that I know of,” James Gartland, a San Diego emergency services official, said Sunday, appearing to refer to migration flows between Mexico and the United States. United.
The eight victims are adults, he added at a press conference, without disclosing their nationalities.
Help was called around 11:30 p.m. local time on Saturday by a person speaking Spanish, who informed them that a boat with about ten passengers had capsized.
The first boat “was rolled over by the waves,” James Spitler, a San Diego Coast Guard official, said at the news conference. The second boat, which was carrying eight other people – including the one who called for help – “managed to reach the shore”, he continued.
Once there, rescuers discovered the two small “capsized” fishing boats on the shore, before removing the bodies of the victims from the sea, Gartland said.
They “did not find any survivors” during their operations, but people were able to reach the shore and “leave the beach”, Mr Gartland said.
The area in which the boats were “is very dangerous, even in broad daylight”, with strong currents and powerful waves, he estimated.
The city of San Diego is very close to the border between Mexico and the United States.
Many migrants cross it illegally, a subject that has become a political headache for the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
“Since 2017, human trafficking has increased 771% in coastal Southern California,” the Coast Guard’s Spitler said on Sunday, saying 23 people have died at sea since 2021.
Migrants, who want to escape poverty or violence in their countries of origin, often take enormous risks to enter American soil.